Dream Sequence
by garon604
Summary: Stories that mainly involve dreams.
1. The NeoCola Factory

_iA strong gust… _

_A swinging rope bridge, with some planks missing… _

_A giant chasm, with bubbling lava at the bottom…_

_A mysterious figure with long billowing hair…_

"_Who are you?"_

_The figure only shook its head, as if to say no to something, and then it disappeared. In its place was a door made of obsidian, with letters too small to see from a distance._

"_Wait, come back!"_

_The rope bridge swished and creaked in the wind, and the rope suddenly snapped. The hot lava rose to meet - i_

"Donny!"

Krissy shook her Grundo friend violently. "Donny, Donny! Wake up!"

"Wha'?" Donny reluctantly opened his eyes to find the face of a young, female Brown Grundo shaking him. "What's happening?"

"You fell asleep on the construction line iagain!/i" Krissy scolded. "I know our job is boring, but you can't keep dozing off like this!"

"It's just the amount of sleep I've been getting lately isn't that great," Donny apologized, getting up and rubbing his eyes before looking back down at what he was supposed to be doing: attaching pull tabs on to cans of NeoCola in the Kreludan NeoCola Factory.

The job was so monotonous that he let his mind wander freely as he did it. As the assembly line silently brought him a can of NeoCola, he took a tab out of a box on his lap and hammered it on to the top of the can with a hammer. The job wasn't much, but it was the first job one could have if they ever worked at the factory.

'It was that stupid dream again,' Donny thought to himself, taking out a tab from the box. Hammering it on to a passing can, he considered what it might've meant. He had heard rumors from the Red Grundos that worked as can-painters that the highest-ranking job's subsection in the Factory had to be reached by a swinging rope bridge over a chasm of boiling hot lava, but he had personally never seen it. As he was only a Brown Grundo, nobody really paid much attention to him unless he did something wrong. If he could one day become a Cloud Grundo that cleaned the more important part of the factory, he could one day perhaps sneak a peek into the subsection and see what they did.

"Donny, watch it!" Krissy screamed, grabbing a hold of his hammering hand. He came back to reality and realized that he was about to hammer a can of NeoCola without putting a tab on it first. "Seriously, what's up with you today?"

"Thanks, Kris," Donny said gratefully. Krissy only smirked and sat back down in the seat across from him. Donny had only met the strange female Grundo when he started working at the factory about a month ago. She was a rare sight; not many girls worked at the NeoCola factory, and those who did usually left after two weeks for various reasons, such as the factory not being hygienic. Krissy, on the other hand, was a sassy, hard worker and did not seem to mind getting her nails dirty.

A Purple Grundo dressed in a dull grey uniform entered the room. He rang a cowbell with a wooden spoon and yelled, "Brown: break time!"

All the Grundos in the room put down the box of tabs, stood up with a bagged lunch in hand, and trooped down a small hallway in the west wall of the production room.

Donny, who was ready to tab and hammer the next can of NeoCola, was shook back into reality by a smiling Krissy. "What's up with you today?"

Donny was mildly aggravated at his friend. Picking up his lunch, he muttered, "I told you, I haven't been sleeping enough lately!"

"Well, you can sleep and eat during the break… you can sleat!" Kris mischievously stole Donny's lunch and ran down the hallway to the break room. "Now all you need to do is sleep!" she yelled around her shoulder as she disappeared into the dimly lit hallway.

"Now, seriously, Krissy…" Donny began chasing the Grundo. Sometimes, she really was just itoo/i much.

Donny ran past a large plaque on the wall, illustrating the various ranks of the NeoCola Factory. At the top of their food chain were the Glowing and Orange Grundos, who inputted something secret into the NeoCola formula nobody knew about. Since different ranks of factory workers hardly ever saw each other, nobody knew much about this. Only a handful of administrators even knew who the owner of the factory was.

"I heard he's green all over and dresses in black all the time!" a Brown Grundo behind Donny muttered as they passed the ranking plaque.

Sometimes, Donny thought about why everything had to be rumored. Being born at the Grundo Adoption Agency at Virtupets and without any books to read, he was not very intelligent. However, he had drawn a simple conclusion: because all of the subsections, minus the Purple command workforce, were so divided, an invasion on the factory would be easy because nobody would know how to band together and stop the invaders.

"Give me back my lunch!" Donny burst into the brightly-lit circular Brown break room. It consisted of an assortment of round tables with stools set around the walls and six moldy couches set in a rectangle around a coffee table in the very middle of the room. A table loaded with an odd assortment of expired food for the desperate was set to one side, with a couple of ragged-looking workers with frowns on their faces hopefully picking through the items.

"You're going to have to get it," laughed Krissy. She was sitting on a moldy couch by herself, waiting for Donny to arrive. Smiling devilishly, she pointed to the counter of food. The male Grundo, horrified, saw his lunch, packaged in an Illusen Lunch Box, was sitting on top of a Poisonous Jelly. A toothless, grey-haired factory worker was about to pick it up. Krissy's victim recognized him as Zell, a worker who had been at the factory for many years.

Donny quickly ran over to the table and snatched his lunch back before the slow-moving Grundo had picked it up. The old worker turned to look at Donny with grey, slightly milky eyes. "Was that your lunch?" he wheezed.

"Y – yes…" The younger worker stammered. Donny had a hard time pulling his attention away from those eyes. They had a look of want in them, though Donny did not know what the worker could have wanted besides food and healthcare.

"I'm sorry, sonny," Zell responded, and he proceeded to take the Poisonous Jelly. With a twang of pity, Donny turned around to go reprimand Krissy. However, he had barely gone two steps when a voice behind him demanded, _"iWait./i"_

Donny turned around hesitantly. The senile factory worker had gone stiff, his milky eyes beginning to swirl. The Poisonous Jelly had been dropped on to the floor. Donny quickly looked around: there was nobody nearby whom he could call for help, and he seemed to be rooted to the spot.

Zell began to speak in a voice quiet enough for only Donny to hear. "You – tunnel – highest – Glowing – Orange – " he mumbled incoherently.

Donny, who was now looking for somebody who could help, stammered, "You wait here, Zell, I'll get some – what?" He froze at the mention of Glowing.

"On the eve of the next shipment of NeoCola to Neopia, a glitch will cause a secret gateway to open underneath the Brown department break room when an Illusen Lunchbox is placed on top of a Poisonous Jelly. Only two will know of this, and creep down the tunnel to a swinging rope bridge over a crater of lava. On the other side, one of them will find the great secret that hangs over them like a storm cloud."

After this, he began muttering again, "Thunder – rain – end!" being the only things that Donny could discern. Then, without warning, the old Grundo collapsed on to the linoleum floor.

Donny was captured in paralysis. Krissy appeared by his side and demanded, "Donny, what have you been doing? How long does it take –" She stopped scolding her friend when she saw Zell on the ground.

As both of the younger Grundos looked at their elder, he appeared to dissolve before them into a small pile of sludge. Nobody else was watching except for Donny and Krissy, too transfixed upon the disturbing scene before them to call for help.

Then, there was a rumbling. This woke Donny and Krissy from their mesmerized state. Looking around, the two Grundos noticed that all of their fellow workers had already gone back to work. Nobody else could feel the earthquake.

Sporadically, there was a green light that shot up all of the walls, making a cage-like pattern. Wires behind the ceiling and floor combusted, and the lights went out. Krissy screamed, for one of the wires underneath the pile of sludge poked through the ground and directly through the Pile of Sludge. A gigantic, gaping, swirling vertex appeared, with the sludge in the very center. Like a whirlpool, it swirled around and around, little bits of electricity zooming around its edges.

Cautiously, Donny stepped towards the swirling mass of energy. Zell's words came back to him: "A glitch will cause a secret gateway to open… to a swinging rope bridge."

Vividly, the dream came back to him.

_i A swinging rope bridge, with some planks missing…/i _

He knew what he had to do. Without thinking, Donny jumped into the swirl. Krissy screamed, "You stupid Grundo! What do you think you're doing?" but Donny did not hear her. Krissy let out an exasperated sigh and followed after her friend, despite the strange consequences that might follow.

It felt to the Grundos as if they were being pushed through a swirly straw. In what felt like only a few seconds, they found themselves at the edge of an extremely high cliff with a strong gust whipping against their faces. Standing up, a prophetic sight met Donny's eyes: there was the rope bridge over a crater of lava he had been dreaming about for so long. A figure with long, billowing hair stood on the other side.

"Who are you?" Donny called. He was not going to wait for the masked person to get away again. He stamped off across the bridge, despite Krissy's imperative scream to stop immediately.

The ropes snapped and the planks behind Donny began falling into the lava, but he kept on running. The figure was now shaking its head.

"Oh no you don't!" When he was about three-quarters of the way to the other side, Donny jumped and grabbed a hold of the figure. The Grundo was about to remove the stranger's hood when he spotted the words on the door behind.

"You – are you -?"

"Yes," a voice like a squeaky hinge said from underneath the hood. Taking it off, a head like a chicken was revealed. "It is I, the owner of the NeoCola Factory."

"Dr. Sloth?!" Donny exclaimed. "But – what – huh -?"

"Brown Grundo Donny," Dr. Sloth smiled and took his attacker off of his shoulders and placed him on the last part of the bridge still remaining. "You – I am displeased with you. You know that nobody pays attention to you unless you mess up… and you certainly have…"

With a malevolent smirk, Dr. Sloth slowly began approaching Donny on the remainder of the rope bridge. "You should have realized… curiosity ikills/i the cat…

"No – no!" Donny stammered. Behind him, Krissy spontaneously dissolved into a pile of sludge in a similar way Zell did.

Dr. Sloth declared, "You are hereby – fired!"

And with a claw that contained more force than was necessary, Donny was pushed off of the bridge, with the red hot lava rising to meet –

"Donny!"

Krissy yelled, and shook her Grundo friend. Donny woke up, gasping. He found himself on the production line, where un-tabbed cans were beginning to build up into a small pile.

"Seriously! What's up with you lately?" Krissy said. "Boss is going to fire you if you keep falling asleep!"

'Boss…' The word rang in Donny's mind. He opened his mouth to talk about his dream, but then realized that it iwas/i a dream. Further down the production line, Zell was still a Grundo, Krissy was still a living creature, and Dr. Sloth was not their boss.

Or was he?

Donny never did find out. Because of his sleepiness, everyone in his rank was eventually bumped up into the next job except for him. He was doomed to tab NeoCola cans for the rest of his life, until an Illusen Lunchbox next sits on top of a Poisonous Jelly…


	2. The Sea of Dreams

iDroplets of water splashed through the air like small gemstones.

A Maraquan Aisha, an Aisha mermaid, the most beautiful Maraquan Neopet ever to be seen, leaped out of the water into the bright, tropical sunlight in the Neopian ocean. She could not have even wished for better weather. The light filtered through the water like columns in the sea as she splashed back into her territory after a brief glance of the surface.

Underwater, it was beautiful. Swarms of Maraquan sea petpets and a variety of fish of all different shapes, colours, and sizes passed her as she swam deeper and deeper…

She approached a cave made of coral. As she entered, the Aisha saw a bright light glimmering at the end of the cave. A violent shaking abruptly begun; pieces of the living stone fell from the ceiling and the walls crumbled to dust, but the Maraquan pet had no fear. It had happened many times before, and she had always escaped the rocking of the cave, but not this time. This time, she was determined to finally reach the glowing at the end of the cave. Just a little bit further…/i

"Seriah! bSeriah!/b Wake up!"

Seriah's eyes reluctantly opened. She found the face of her teacher, Miss Ice, her Electric Grarrl expression as cold as her name, shaking Seriah's entire desk in an attempt to wake her up. "Good, you're awake. You may step outside of the classroom until I come outside to have a talk with you."

Apprehensively, the Green Aisha stood up and walked to the door. As she passed her friend Louise, a Blue Zafara, Seriah gave her a quick glance, which Louise returned as a sad smile.

The door swung shut behind Seriah. She sat down on the bench next to her classroom. This had been the second time she had been kicked out of class that year; the first was because she had been eating in class. Her parents did not seem to mind at all, saying that that was a ridiculous reason for a young Aisha like her to be sent out of the room, and that if her teacher ever did anything like that ever again, they'd have a talk with Miss Ice.

This time, it was inexcusable. It was the tenth time she had fallen asleep in class that month, and the third time that week (it was only Tuesday). Miss Ice had simply given Seriah warnings, and occasionally eraser duty, but this time, she must have been really mad.

Her fourth grade teacher had seemed nice before, but now Seriah thought that she was just plain cold. "She doesn't have a heart," the Aisha muttered menacingly into the air. "All she has is an icy cold black hole. If only…"

"If only what?" said a voice to the left of her. Seriah turned and there stood the outline of an Invisible Ixi that quickly disappeared as the classroom door opened and Miss Ice stepped out.

"You will be pleased to know, Seriah, that you missed a geography pop quiz," the Grarrl teacher said, with a small smirk on her face. "It was worth twenty percent of your grade. Please tell your parents that the reason you are doing so poorly in geography is because of this."

Seriah nodded, secretly hoping that Miss Ice would stumble over the atrociously thin stilettos she was donning on her feet. Her teacher began giving her a lecture on the losses of falling asleep class. The Aisha constantly wondered how such thin blades could hold up such an evil creation. 'I bet she uses her shoes to cut meat,' Louise had observed the one time their teacher had ever punished the Zafara for passing notes to Seriah about the really cute Lupe that sat at the back of the classroom. Seriah still found it amusing when Miss Ice had read the note aloud for the entire class to hear, and could not help herself: she let out a snort.

"You think this is funny?" Miss Ice said sharply. "This could affect your passing of the year!"

Seriah bit back her retort. "Yes, Miss Ice," she said.

The Grarrl smiled. "You will now stay out of the classroom for the mythology lesson. Let me warn you: there is a test on what we learn tomorrow, and you are not allowed to copy any notes from Louise, or Johnson, or Archibald, or anybody. Do you hear me, young lady?"

The Aisha looked straight into the eyes of Miss Ice. "Yes, Miss Ice," she said in an exasperated tone. It took all of her self-control to stop herself from saying, i"No, you evil hag. You're not the boss of me. You're a psycho, insane, control-freak dictator! I'll never listen to you!"/i Miss Ice, however, smiled malevolently and stepped back into the classroom.

Seriah buried her head into her arms. Her parents were accepting of her not being the top of the class, but they never even considered the thought of her failing. Tears began to fall from her eyes and on to the bench.

"That lady really is an evil piece of work, isn't she?" the voice from her left said. Seriah turned to see the same Invisible Ixi. The Ixi put an arm around Seriah's sobbing form and said, "I can help you, Seriah."

The Aisha was shocked. Quickly, she pulled out of the embrace of the invisible Neopet. "Who are you? How do you know my name?" she whispered dramatically through choked sobs.

The Ixi remained calm. "My name is Jill."

"That still doesn't explain how you know my name?"

"I heard Miss Ice mention it."

"Oh." Seriah returned to her senses and turned around to face the wall in an attempt to hide her embarrassment. After turning around, she asked, "How can you help me?"

"By taking you to a place where reality no longer exists."

"What?"

"Follow me."

With that, Jill leaped from the bench and began running towards the exits of the school. "Wait," called Seriah, and she cast a look at Miss Ice teaching the rest of the class out of a large, leather-bound dusty book. Then, as she looked upon the hated face of her teacher, a wild, exhilarating feeling overtook her. She ran after the Ixi and out into the bright sunshine of Altador.

If she had not spent all of her energy on trying to keep up with Jill, she would have noticed that the weather was identical to the one in her dream.

Jill led her from the NeoSchool, which was southwest of the coliseum, and into the Altador Water Distribution plant. They ran through various rooms, all of which were empty. Soon, Seriah found herself on the northeast wall of Altador, Jill running down the plains and into the foothills of the Altadorian mountains.

Seriah did not even stop to consider the fact that she had never left Altador alone before. She began running after Jill. Normally, the Aisha would have been dead tired by now, but the same force that had made her ditch Miss Ice was powering her. Nothing could stop her now.

After following the flicker that was Jill for about ten minutes through dense undergrowth and over a couple of small hills, they found themselves at a beach. However, the beach held turquoise sand. Seriah sat down, resting her tired leg muscles. Jill was standing at the water's edge, gazing out into the ocean.

"What is this?" Seriah called to Jill.

"This is the Sea of Dreams," explained Jill. The Aisha noticed that the water was, in some places, rainbow coloured. "Lay down on the sand and sleep, and I will meet you in the waters."

Seriah was intrigued by this. "What do you mean?"

"Lay your head down and rest, and I will meet you in the water."

Suddenly, a great wave of fatigue swept over Seriah. She slowly laid down on the sand, closed her eyes, and was instantly asleep.

In her dreams, she opened her eyes to find herself underwater. Instantly, she put her hands to her throat; she feared she would not be able to breathe. However, there was a shuddering at her neck, and oxygen flowed into her lungs. Seriah looked down at herself: she was a Maraquan Aisha! She was back in the dream she had visited for the past month.

'This must mean something,' Seriah thought.

She felt like she knew what to do. Using her new form, she bounded through the water and broke through the surface of the water with a leap. Like a dolphin, she performed a stunning arc she never would have been capable to do in her state of wakefulness and looked around her. The same sun was shining down upon her, but she appeared to be an in an endless sea. There was nothing around for miles except water except for a distant blot on the horizon that could have been the mountains of Altador.

As Seriah returned underwater, she remembered Jill's words: 'I'll meet you in the water.' "Where is she right now?" the Aisha wondered aloud. Bubbles formed from her mouth, but she could still hear the words being spoken. Like in her previous dreams, swarms of petpets and fish swept past her. She smiled at them, and they smiled back.

Suddenly, out of the swarm, a Maraquan Zafara spontaneously appeared.

"Louise!" Seriah was overjoyed to see her friend. She swam up to her. "Where'd you come from?"

The Zafara was looking down at herself. "I think I must've fallen asleep in mythology… we were having a silent reading time where we just read our textbooks." Then, she looked at Seriah. "Where are we?"

"In the Sea of Dreams," the Aisha said happily.

Louise looked perturbed. "That sounds familiar, but I can't remember why…"

Seriah smiled. A feeling of euphoria was inside of her. "Nevermind, then. Let's go."

"Go where?" Louise sounded skeptical.

"I don't know," Seriah said, "just follow me,"

Reminding herself of Jill, she suddenly swam even deeper into the water. Behind her, Louise followed, though unlike Seriah and Jill the Zafara was able to keep up.

Before long, Seriah saw a cave made of coral. A faint light seemed to emanate from the entrance. "Over there," Seriah said, pointing.

"What's in there?" Louise asked, but then realized that she was just wasting her words. Obviously, Seriah didn't know. She didn't even say anything.

Out of nowhere, the Aisha twitched and her eyes narrowed. A strange presence was inside the cave; a presence she had never felt before in her many dreams about the location. "There's something here…" Seriah said. "Something not fun at all." Louise didn't even bother asking any questions; instead, she just set a determined expression on her face and continued following her friend.

They swam to the mouth of the cavern. The two dreaming girls were about to go inside when there was a rumbling from the back of the cave and a Maraquan Grarrl came out in a flurry of dark bubbles and pieces of gravel. Seriah already knew who the enemy was. "Miss Ice," Seriah muttered to Louise, whose eyes opened wide. "She must've fallen asleep, too."

"What's this?" Miss Ice said, looking at Seriah, and then Louise. "Such a smart girl like you should not hang out with riffraff like this, Louise. Mr. Hanson was correct; bad apples do spoil the rest. Come over to my side, and we can practice mythology and writing together. You can succeed, and one day transform into a successful Neopian. You can listen to the right side."

Miss Ice's word bubbles seemed to worm through the air above her. She was maliciously smiling at Louise, who looked uncomfortable.

'iDon't listen to her/i…' Seriah thought at her friend. 'iShe'll just make you like her… bossy… arrogant… evil…/i'

Louise looked like she heard her friend's thoughts. She held her head high, looked Miss Ice straight in the eye, and said, "No. Seriah is my true friend. You are not my friend, Miss Ice. You are my teacher. You would be a fake friend. We can never become friends."

The Maraquan Grarrl reared back, foaming at the mouth. Dark bubbles sprouted and floated into the water. "You – you foolish girl! You dare to do anything like this! You – you –" Then, the teacher turned to Seriah. "This is your fault! You've corrupted my best student, and as a result, she's condescended to your level! You've poisoned her mind, interrupted her good thoughts and replaced them with bad –" Miss Ice seemed to glow red as she charged at Seriah, her jaws wide open. The Aisha recoiled, ready for the impact.

"You will not harm my friend!" And a shadow fell over Seriah. Was she dead? No, she looked up. Louise was standing in front of Seriah, but she was slowly fading away. "I'm waking up, Seriah… this dream… I can never return to this sea…"

Giving no further explanation, she exploded into a torrent of bubbles and disappeared. Miss Ice's teeth were clenched in the place where Louise had been. She appeared to be in pain.

"This – these feelings… the courage she left behind… the friendship… it burns my hurt! It burns the very fibers of my body… it… it…"

Miss Ice recoiled again, and she started to fade into bubbles. Quickly, she sped off into the distance, so Seriah did not see her remain broken in the Sea of Dreams forever in her sleeping state.

Hesitantly, the Aisha swam into the cave. Things seemed awfully lonely without Louise, but the light was inviting. She wondered vaguely what had become of Louise and Miss Ice. Had they actually woken up? She had to wake up too to check on them, though she had to figure out what the light inside the cave was.

Something inside Seriah told her she just had to.

When the light was about to envelope her, the Aisha anticipated the shaking of the walls. She closed her eyes and prepared to awaken. However, nothing happened. Miss Ice was not there to shake a desk. There were no alarm clocks to wake her up. The tide on the turquoise sand where she was now asleep had not yet reached her face to douse her back into reality. She swam on, and finally reached the end of the cave.

There, at the source of the bright light, was a Maraquan Ixi carrying a glowing orb. "So, we finally meet in the water," Jill said, smiling.

Seriah suddenly felt the euphoric feeling leave her, despite breaking the chain of curiosity that had drawn her to the cave for so long. She sat down on the floor of the cave and broke down and cried.

"That Miss Ice, she's gotten me so wound up for so long, and now because of her Louise is gone, and my parents are going to be so mad, and I'll be stuck in this dream forever, and – and –"

Amidst her sobs, Jill once again put her arms around Seriah, who tried to recoil. However, the light the Ixi was carrying seemed to bind her to Jill's embrace. "Dry your eyes, Seriah," she said, in a voice of serenity. A feeling of calm swept over the Aisha as Jill said, in a voice that seemed to be fading, "Everything will be alright…"

The cave did not shake, but instead faded. Jill found herself on the bench in front of her classroom again.

"I just don't know what happened, doctor. She just won't wake up." Louise's voice said. Seriah sat up, thinking that her friend was talking about her. However, she was talking to one of the two doctors that held up a hammock, with Miss Ice on it. "We've tried everything: littering, talking during class, ripping pages out of textbooks, gluing everything in her desk together, Neomailing during class, poisoning her food, destroying the classroom: nothing worked. It's not like she's dead, though. It's as if she's in a trance or something."

"Thank you, young lady," a third doctor, who was writing down all of the information, said.

"It was no trouble, sir," Louise said, bowing. The doctors carried Miss Ice from the building. After she exited to never return to the NeoSchool, an Ixi teacher walked up the hallway with a scrap of paper in her hand. Seriah could see there was a room number written on it, and was surprised when she realized that it was her classroom.

"This is classroom 403, correct?" the teacher asked Seriah, who was still lying on the bench (though at least she was sitting up). Seriah nodded, too stunned to talk. "That's wonderful. I will be taking over this class tomorrow, and I just wanted to find it first. You may call me Miss Jill."

Seriah rediscovered her voice. "My name is Seriah."

The Ixi winked at her. "I know," she said, before walking away.

Seriah blinked.

"What was that all about?" Louise asked, sitting down on the bench beside Seriah.

"New teacher," the Aisha said casually. "Did you fall asleep in myth today?"

Louise grinned sheepishly. "Yes, I did, but I woke up when I poked my elbow on my pencil."

"Then – then Miss Ice didn't eat you?"

"What are you talking about?"

Seriah shook her head. Now that she thought about it, what had she been doing for the past hour when she had been sent out? She seemed to remember something about a sea, and Miss Ice, and some Neopet named Jill…

"Come to think of it, do we still have that quiz tomorrow?" Seriah asked Louise, forgetting what Miss Ice had forbid her from doing.

"Yeah, but it's easy. It's on the Sea of Dreams."

The name stuck out to Seriah. Somehow, she seemed to know all about it.

"That'll be a piece of cake," the Aisha said, smiling.

Louise smiled, looking at her friend as if she was insane. "How do you know?"

Seriah smiled and stood up. "I just know everything will be alright."


End file.
